The Weird and The Wonderful

The Weird and The Wonderful forum is a place to post Coding Horrors, Worst Practices, and the occasional flash of brilliance.

We all come across code that simply boggles the mind. Lazy kludges, embarrassing mistakes, horrid workarounds and developers just not quite getting it. And then somedays we come across - or write - the truly sublime.

Post your Best, your worst, and your most interesting. But please - no programming questions . This forum is purely for amusement and discussions on code snippets. All actual programming questions will be removed.

Re: Using Else with blank If

AncientCodeslinger7-Mar-07 15:47

AncientCodeslinger

7-Mar-07 15:47

Both examples make me shudder. Why would you compare a boolean to True or False? It IS true or false.

Re: Using Else with blank If

Roger Bamforth7-Mar-07 21:55

Roger Bamforth

7-Mar-07 21:55

Absolutely. Along the same lines, my pet peeve is

bool b;

if (condition)
{
  b = true;
}
else
{
  b = false;
}

what on earth is wrong with

bool b = condition;

Regards

- Roger

Re: Using Else with blank If

Josh Smith8-Mar-07 7:33

Josh Smith

8-Mar-07 7:33

Roger Bamforth wrote:
what on earth is wrong with

bool b = condition;

In general I completely agree with you. The only time I might use the "bad" way is for debugging purposes. If I only want a breakpoint to hit when 'condition' is false, then I will create an explicit if/else branch. Of course, after debugging I revert the code back to bool b = condition; (I'm usually too lazy to setup debugger conditions!)

:josh:
My WPF Blog[^]

Re: Using Else with blank If

Hal Angseesing8-Mar-07 22:17

Hal Angseesing

8-Mar-07 22:17

Yep, done this myself. And debugger conditional breakpoints are actually quite a lot slower than IP traps.

Re: Using Else with blank If

Graham Bradshaw10-Mar-07 2:49

Graham Bradshaw

10-Mar-07 2:49

Well, if the condition is to test the equality of two variables,

bool b;<br><br>if (x = y)<br>{<br>  b = true;<br>}<br>else<br>{<br>  b = false;<br>}<br>

will give you a compiler warning, and

bool b = (x = y);

will not. (Note the assignment vs equality test bug)

Re: Using Else with blank If

Roger Bamforth11-Mar-07 22:59

Roger Bamforth

11-Mar-07 22:59

That's a good point and is actually something that had never occurred to me.

However, whether or not you get a warning depends upon the types of x, y and b is not as simple as it seems. It is probably also language and compiler dependant.

e.g in Visual C++

bool x = true;
bool y = true;
bool b = (x = y);

gives no warning, as you say, but

int x = true;
int y = true;
bool b = (x = y);

does generate a warning (forcing an int to be a bool) and

int x = true;
int y = true;
BOOL b = (x = y);

doesn't.

Regards

- Roger

Re: Using Else with blank If

D1112-Apr-07 5:39

D111

2-Apr-07 5:39

Shouldn't it be:

bool b = (x == y);

----------

bool b = (x = y);

would set x to y and then b to x

---
The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant. The total number of people is always increasing.

Re: Using Else with blank If

Kevin McFarlane10-Mar-07 12:05

Kevin McFarlane

10-Mar-07 12:05

It's also quite common. I often find myself starting with the first one, then after testing, stepping through, etc., I refactor to the second.

Kevin

Re: Using Else with blank If

Marcus J. Smith8-Mar-07 3:22

Marcus J. Smith

8-Mar-07 3:22

I think it is just easier to read when you say say what you want it to equal.

If boolean = True

instead of just saying

If boolean

I just couldnt think of a good example but what I was getting at is really saying something like

If strType = "GOOD" OrElse strType = "COOL" Then 
'Good Record
Else
blnError = True
End If

instead of saying

If strType <> "GOOD" AndAlso strType <> "COOL" Then 
blnError = True
End If

_Cle^aKO

"I think you'll be okay here, they have a thin candy shell. 'Surprised you didn't know that." - Tommy Boy
"Fill it up again! Fill it up again! Once it hits your lips, it's so good!" - Frank the Tank (Old School)

Re: Using Else with blank If

jhwurmbach8-Mar-07 4:23

jhwurmbach

8-Mar-07 4:23

CleaKO wrote:
think it is just easier to read when you say say what you want it to equal.

If boolean = True

instead of just saying

If boolean

Funny.
For me its just the opposite: The superfluous = True imposes the nagging feel in me, I have missed something while reading the code.

But then, the whole VB code gives me a screaming fit anyway.
Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Failure is not an option - it's built right in.

Re: Using Else with blank If

John R. Shaw9-Mar-07 10:41

John R. Shaw

9-Mar-07 10:41

jhwurmbach wrote:
But then, the whole VB code gives me a screaming fit anyway.

I know the feeling. Wink | ;)

INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence."Edsger Dijkstra

Re: Using Else with blank If

Kevin McFarlane10-Mar-07 12:11

Kevin McFarlane

10-Mar-07 12:11

jhwurmbach wrote:
But then, the whole VB code gives me a screaming fit anyway.

But you see such style in the C-family languages too, though it's probably less common.

Kevin

Re: Using Else with blank If

Dave Kreskowiak8-Mar-07 5:04

Dave Kreskowiak

8-Mar-07 5:04

Yeah, it's just the opposite for me too. Especially if you name your boolean properties or methods correctly.

If UserIsInRole(user, role) Then

Just the name of the function implies that it returns a True/False value.

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Re: Using Else with blank If

PIEBALDconsult8-Mar-07 10:16

PIEBALDconsult

8-Mar-07 10:16

CleaKO wrote:
If boolean = True

But then you may have trouble when the code is ported to C, so you really need:

If True = boolean

--| "Every tool is a hammer." |--

Re: Using Else with blank If

John R. Shaw9-Mar-07 10:35

John R. Shaw

9-Mar-07 10:35

It is a good idea to place the constant value to the left of the equality symbol in any language that supports them, to catch syntax errors.

It just feels so unnatural to type it that way. Wink | ;)

INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence."Edsger Dijkstra

Re: Using Else with blank If

Shog⁹9-Mar-07 12:08

Shog⁹

9-Mar-07 12:08

You might still have trouble in C, if you run up against code that uses other non-zero values for "true"...

----

It appears that everybody is under the impression that I approve of the documentation. You probably also blame Ken Burns for supporting slavery.

--Raymond Chen on MSDN

Re: Using Else with blank If

AncientCodeslinger9-Mar-07 15:14

AncientCodeslinger

9-Mar-07 15:14

If that's how you use booleans, you might as well just use an integer set to 1 or 0 or a string set to "Y" or "N" (or "True" or "False"). How about:

<br />
somethingIsWrong = (type <> "GOOD" AndAlso type <> "Cool")<br />

With a variable name that clearly expresses the condition represented by the boolean, the comparison to True or False becomes clearly redundant.

Re: Using Else with blank If

Kevin McFarlane10-Mar-07 12:09

Kevin McFarlane

10-Mar-07 12:09

The reason for the first is that some people have a fixation about negative conditionals, such that they will try and avoid them at all costs - such as the cost you describe!

Kevin

Re: Using Else with blank If

peterchen12-Mar-07 5:56

peterchen

12-Mar-07 5:56

boolean = True

but that's a boolean expression again, which could be true.. or false.
So to make absoultely clear you want b = true to be true (not false), you write
If (boolean = True) = True

lather, rinse, repeat

Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

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Re: Using Else with blank If

Shog⁹8-Mar-07 7:31

Shog⁹

8-Mar-07 7:31

I prefer

If ( isFlag ) Then Continue

Succinct.

----

It appears that everybody is under the impression that I approve of the documentation. You probably also blame Ken Burns for supporting slavery.

--Raymond Chen on MSDN

On rare occassion

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr.12-Mar-07 4:20

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr.

12-Mar-07 4:20

If there is a complicated method and I want to indicate that I did indeed accomodate both possibilities I will, ocassionaly, leave a blank if. However, I almost never check a boolean variable against a boolean and instead prefer :

<br />
if(isFlagSet){<br />
   //Some commented out code or not about<br />
   //Why not used<br />
<br />
}<br />
else if(!isFlagSet){<br />
   //Some Actual code<br />
   ...<br />
}<br />
else{<br />
   //File Not Found<br />
}<br />

Just kidding with the File not found!

File Not Found

The daily WTF!

Magnus L Karlsson7-Mar-07 7:28

Magnus L Karlsson

7-Mar-07 7:28

or http://worsethanfailure.com as it is caled now, is worth checking out if you like this forum.

Magnus

Nice catch!

webmarco6-Mar-07 21:38

webmarco

6-Mar-07 21:38

The code below is part of an eventhandler
Very informative and easy to debug Cry | :((

The worse part is that there are quite a few of these constructions in the application at hand. Shouldn't there be a law against such 'programmers'?
.....
try
{
int startNummer = Convert.ToInt32(dataGrid1[dataGrid1.CurrentRowIndex, 0]);
Hashtable ht = Logica.HaalEquipeIDBijStartnummer(editieID);
equipeID = (int) ht[startNummer];

if (!Logica.IsTijdControleIngevoerd(etappeID))
return;

}
catch
{
return;
}
....

Keep smiling,
Marco

Re: Nice catch!

AnthonyC6-Mar-07 23:21

AnthonyC

6-Mar-07 23:21

It is in Dutch. I have no problem reading it, and I don't even speak the language (2 minutes at Babelfish will do it). Get a Dutch programmer to translate it for you. Or does program code always have to be in English? Sigh | :sigh:

Re: Nice catch!

webmarco6-Mar-07 23:28

webmarco

6-Mar-07 23:28

Can you explain to me what is meant by the catch in this piece of code?

Regards,
Marco

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